Prague, May 24, 2018 – Unipetrol has completed the planned six-week turnaround of its refinery in Kralupy nad Vltavou and has fully restored its operation. The total maintenance and modernisation costs exceeded one billion crowns of which CZK 400 million were spent on new investment projects. Unipetrol performs regular turnarounds of its refineries according to the legislative requirements in roughly five-year cycles. The previous turnaround of the Kralupy Refinery took place in 2013.
"The shutdown is a planned halting of production, the primary reason being the regular maintenance of all technologies in the area according to legislative and technical and technological requirements. It is also an opportunity to implement investment projects and technological changes that we would otherwise have to install while operating or during a partial downtime, which could have an impact on the smoothness and economic efficiency of the operation," explained Jaroslav Hacko, Production Manager of the Unipetrol Group’s Kralupy nad Vltavou Refinery.
The turnaround at the Kralupy Refinery was the largest in its history. Compared to the past, it differed in the volume of service and investment work. "In addition to the detailed inspection and maintenance of all facilities, we have modernized the technologies in the main production units. In advance, we have thereby met the legislative requirements of the European Union and the Czech Republic to implement the so-called Best Available Techniques (BAT) that will come into force in 2020," said Jaroslav Hacko: "The restart of the production units was accompanied by temporary sound and lights effects. We apologize to all residents of the surrounding towns and villages for these inconveniences," he added.
The refinery and petrochemical group Unipetrol is the only crude oil processor in the Czech Republic, an important producer of fuels, plastics and fertilisers, and the owner of the Benzina petrol station network, which, with its 402 stations, is the largest network in the Czech Republic. Oil is fed to the Czech Republic from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline. From Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Arab and African countries, oil flows through the IKL pipeline (Ingolstadt - Kralupy nad Vltavou - Litvínov), which follows the TAL oil pipeline from Trieste, Italy. In the Czech Republic, two Unipetrol refineries process the imported crude oil – in Kralupy nad Vltavou and Záluží u Litvínova, where the related production of petrochemical products is based. The total volume of oil supplies to the Czech Republic reaches eight million tons a year, of which approximately one third is processed in the Kralupy nad Vltavou refinery.